Week 5
Mainstream Environmental Organizations and Their Critics
 Videos of Week 5 Lectures

The Mainstream Groups
“The Death of Environmentalism”
The current mainstream movement and EJ

Required Readings:
 

Vig and Kraft, Environmental Policy

Chapter 4: Maintaining Presence: Environmental Advocacy and the Permanent Campaign

Grist Magazine’s Special Series on “The Death of Environmentalism”

Available on the web at: http://www.grist.org/news/maindish/2005/01/13/doe-intro/
Discussion based on “The Death of Environmentalism” by Michael Schellenberger and Ted Norhaus

Suggested Additional Readings on Mainstream Groups
 
Gottlieb, Robert
  “Something in the Wind: Radiation, Pesticides, and Air Pollution” in American Environmental History, Chapter 9, pp. 244-270
Gottlieb, Robert
Forcing the Spring: The transformation of the American environmental movement. Chapter 4.
Warren, Louis S.,
  “National Park and the Trouble with Wilderness” in American Environmental History, Chapter 8, Pp. 212-243
And also....
 
Working Assets
2000
 "Are Greens too white bread?," Working for Change, (22 September 2000).
Chris Clarke
2006
 "Is the Green Movement Too White?," The Thistle, v. 9, no. 5, (17 May 2006).
Jonathan David Farley
2002
 "Did the Green Party Betray Black America?," The Black Commentator, (7 June 2002).


What do you make of the following portrait/interview?

 "Interview: Environmental Crusader Majora Carter," PBS - NOW, (January 26, 2007).
   
[And further references, with special thanks to: Rider W. Foley]
    SSB Staff - Majora Carter Executive Director / Founder
    Majora Carter - Founder and Executive Director, Sustainable South Bronx
      A presentation of SSB Goals and Achievements
    TEDTalks: Majora Carter
  What was the larger context of this interview? Who else was interviewed in this January 26, 2007 program? Consider the extended interview...
  David Brancaccio talks with Laurie David, a producer of the Oscar-nominated documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" and a major environmental activist.
  Why do you think the NOW program framed the two interviews in this manner? Why wasn't there in either segment a more extended discusssion of climate change as an environmental justice issue?
  What can this tell us about the institutionalized racism of the "environmentalist" movement.

Return to Syllabus